Page:Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835 & 1838).djvu/74

4 in most districts, there are many Native institutions, of which no known record exists, and the distribution of the means of education within each district can be ascertained only by minute local investigation. The estimates of the population of the different districts are still for the most part merely conjectural. No approach to actual investigation was attempted until 1801, during the administration of the, when, by the directions of the Governor General, the Board of Revenue circulated various questions on statistical subjects to the Magistrates and Collectors, with the view of ascertain- ing the population and resources of their respective districts. The returns are deemed to have been made with too implicit a dependence upon unchecked Native Authorities; and it would appear from the results of subsequent and more minute investigation that the public functionaries, from whatever cause, kept greatly within the real amount. These are the only estimates that have been made of the population of the districts of Midnapur, Hooghly, Jessore, Nuddea, Dacca, Jalalpur, Backergunge, Chittagong, Tipera, Mymunsingh, Sylhet, Moorshedabad, Beerbhoom, and Rajshahy. In 1807, 1808, and 1809, Dr. surveyed and reported on the Bengal districts of Rangpur, Dinajpur, and Purniya. He had in some instances opportunities of inspecting the original returns of 1801, and satisfied himself of their fallacy; and his own estimates of the population of these three districts, founded on such data as the number of ploughs, the consumption of rice, &c., are greatly in excess of the preceding,—in one instance about double, in another treble, and in a third nearly septuple. In 1814, Mr., then Judge and Magistrate of Burdwan, endeavored with more attention to accuracy than had been in any instance previously given to ascertain the exact number of inhabitants within his jurisdiction, and the amount at which he arrived in like manner exceeded the estimate of 1801. Hamilton remarks that if the population of the other districts was as much underrated in 1801 as that of those estimated by Dr. Buchanan and Mr. Bayley, great as the sum total is, it might be almost doubled. On the other hand, the population of some principal cities has been found by actual census to fall considerably short of what it was before supposed to be. Until, therefore, a complete and accurate census of the population is